116 Comments

Only 10 Seiverts/hour?! That is nothing. It is like nothing happened. According to some the nuclear reactors were not even that badly damaged. Start up the other reactors soon. Oh wait a minute. I am not ..................... Almost had me convinced there for a while. NOT!

I feel that there is in Japan a sense of denial in realising this is actually a very, very, long term problem. Yes, you can still go shopping and live a normal (japanese) life but denial will not stop reality. Making the subject taboo does not make it better or make it go away.

Would it not be better for those in authority and those in the know to be up front and say: we are going to have to change the way this nation operates. We have a unprecedented disaster on our hands that has changed Japan for ever. The earthquakes are over, the tsunami has retreated but we have a very big problem with nuclear radiation leaking into or world. this is what we must do.

Just a reminder how difficult it is to clean up nuclear power incidents

Preventing them from ever happening, however, is much MUCH easier. A road that Tepco didn't bother itself with. And why should it have: Japanese taxpayers would pay for all eventualities and feed the radioactive contaminants to their children. "Not my problem" = "problem solved", right?

TEPCO execs still want a winter bonus according to TV news that covered the stockholders meeting. I say their bonuses should be dropped down that radioactive drainpipe into the basement of number 1 reactor. If they want their bonus so bad, they can fish it out themselves, or better yet dive right in and get it out by hand.

All this and yet the electric companies, government, and shareholders all agree we should continue to rely on this unstable, and clearly very dangerous power source. It would be painful to keep all the reactors shut down, but clearly it is FAR better than the alternative when an accident takes place -- and it will again, large or small. 40 more years are expected for the plant to be cleaned up (despite 'cold shut down being achieved' at the end of last year, according to government), which will cost far, FAR more than alternative energy options. And that's just for this one plant. Given that they are ignoring seismologists warnings yet AGAIN, another major disaster is likely in that time, only next time we probably won't be so lucky.

But hey, denial costs more than anything, and clearly they need to learn that the hard way.

...but you just cant be sure how much of the produce you are buying is contaminated with various kinds of radiation. I was shocked to find apples from New Zealand in my local supermarket the other day. Thats the first time in 30 years of living here that I've ever seen a non-Japanese apple for sale. I wonder why? The bottom line is that the government will always limit really bad news to stop any kind of mass panic occurring, especially in the Tokyo area. As I suggested last year, if you are not Japanese and have young children here, you owe it to your kids to get them out of Japan.

40 years to clean up! And who is paying for that I wonder? Oh, yeah! The same people TEPCO overcharged for decades without even a slap on the wrist!

If TEPCO execs want their winter bonus, they should get it...in the form of a wintry grave. And since if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, they should be given a shovel to dig, free of charge!

Just shows how dangerous this problem is and how long it might take to clean up! Though it's nice to see the first
19 comments, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the people who profit from nuclear power, will put their spin
on this story! Where's Basroll? and the share holders?

And the 5.2 earthquake they just had can't have helped. There is not much you can say about the reactor in question, though. They just don't have a way to clean it up, and any projection about the future has to involve a guess about technology that doesn't exist yet.

I am still waiting for someone to comment that this level of radiation is not that bad and then provide a 1000 words refuting the dangers of radiation. Where are you............?......................?

Demolition of the three reactors as well as the plant’s number 4 unit is expected to take 40 years and will need the use of new technologies.

Incredible. I saw a show on Australian TV the other night that was an investigation run by the 4 Corners show I think - I didn't catch all of it, but they had a Japanese professor of Nuclear science who had spent many years in Europe. He was talking specifically about this number 4 reactor and how there was an incredibly contaminated and potentially dangerous body of water suspended within the structure 30 odd meters above the ground, and how, if they have a large enough earthquake nearby, it will all come tumbling down and create a major, major disaster. And he was also saying that TEPCO and most of the Japanese are effectively just pretending that it isn't there.

I was shocked to find apples from New Zealand in my local supermarket the other day. Thats the first time in 30 years of living here that I've ever seen a non-Japanese apple for sale. I wonder why?

Every year my local supermarket sells apples from New Zealand come June.
They also sell pumpkins from Mexico and New Zealand, asparagus from Mexico, kiwis from New Zealand, etc. etc. in addition to the Japanese produce of the season.
It is autumn in New Zealand so just as every year so far they import fruit from the country which is in the southern hemisphere. Tokyu Store does the same, Olympic does the same. Department stores also import fruit after the season in Japan is over.

The holding pond 30 meters in the air has a bulge on one side and sits on what remains after the explosion. 7.30 report ABC Aust. The core has meted there is no known way of removing or stabilizing it, Cheep clean power. All paid for with TAX payers money. A burden shared.

@Onniyama: Too true. Remember the posters here in the early days, claiming to have degrees in nuclear physics, etc., who said we were all ignorant alarmists for worrying about the possible dangers at Fukushima?

Above the LD50 for sure, but several people exposed to those levels have survived. You will get radiation poisoning though and mortality rate is fairly high even with every measure you can take.

Interestingly though, the onset of radiation sickness (assume minutes is 10min, so 1.6Sv) would actually take several hours to show up, and generally lasts less than a day. And mortality rate is well below 5% so can't say the article is entirely unbiased.

Yet, they still want to bring many of the reactors back online. Are they stupid or ignorant? Or both? How many nuclear disasters will it take for them to realize it is just not safe regardless of any of their so-called 'stress tests'. It is just living with a time bomb. Yeah, yeah, yeah, coal and gas are expensive and they produce greenhouse gases. Um, how much has the meltdown at Fukushima cost so far and how much irreversible damage has been done to the environment? Does the Japanese government have any idea what a risk assessment is? Do they care?

Actually SquidBert, just a couple of years back from a 10 year stint but I understand where your coming from. It was my last visit to Japan earlier this year that left me aghast at how much denial was taking place in Japan towards reality.

I am considering starting an enterprise importing nuclear free sand to japan for people to bury their heads in.

I am still waiting for someone to comment that this level of radiation is not that bad and then provide a 1000 words refuting the dangers of radiation.

Do you work within 100m of that hotspot? Didn't think so. You have nothing to worry about then.

Of course that level of radiation is bad for a properly operating plant, but what about compared to a similar location in Chernobyl? Less than a third (latest reading in the reactor hall is 34Sv/hr), and Chernobyl has been stable for 25 years now. Considering most radiation is from medium lived Cs 137 and other 5-50 year radioisotopes, Fukushima is much better off and will be easier to clean than Chernobyl. Nobody ever said this isn't a nuclear disaster, simply that it isn't on the same scale as Chernobyl like the Japanese government insisted.

how, if they have a large enough earthquake nearby, it will all come tumbling down

If they have a large enough quake to take down a reactor building, you have bigger things to worry about. Or rather, you probably won't have to worry about it because you died when all the non-reactor buildings came down first.

Denial is the key word here. Again, like many of us have been saying from the outset, close that prefecture. Boycott all goods from there and neighbouring prefectures. Send a message and make it count. Personally, I only care about the kids that are subjected to their parent's ignorance. It should be mandatory for all children to be taken out. Yet, what can we do? We can write our comments and have all our opinions, but none of us are going up there to rescue anyone that doesn't want the help or advice. Just a disgrace all around. Wait 20 years when the cancer starts to show up and everyone goes ... "Oh my, where's my compensation?" The boat has left the port.

The holding pond 30 meters in the air has a bulge on one side and sits on what remains after the explosion. 7.30 report ABC Aust. The core has meted there is no known way of removing or stabilizing it, Cheep clean power. All paid for with TAX payers money. A burden shared.

That's the one - I couldn't remember if it was 4 corners or another ABC program. It was very, very sobering, to say the least.

Basroll: Leave it to you, to point out that, 10,300 millisievert an hour (probably won't kill you instantly) and break down the
time line into 10 minute intervals.
(So you can't say if this article is entirely unbiased), what do you mean, exactly!!!
At least you used less than 1000 words, to rearrange the facts, thank you for that. Basroll the electrical engineer!

Limping from one catastrofic blunder to the next probable blunder with the decision to restart some reactors despite expert advice to the contrary.The saga continues, whist TEPCO execs continue to pocket their sa;aries complete with a bonus, subsisided by the tax payer

If they have a large enough quake to take down a reactor building, you have bigger things to worry about. Or rather, you probably won't have to worry about it because you died when all the non-reactor buildings came down first

It's referring to the holding pond getting damaged and leaking, not the whole structure. Here is a link to the report - it starts around the 15 minute mark.

It's only "record" levels, because all of the levels disclosed to the public before were lies... or we were never given an accurate reading from the basement?

Until now tests were never done within the radioactive water pools (at least publicly disclosed ones), though I doubt that it's even record levels like that. Higher recorded levels probably exist from two or three days after, but people like to forget small details like that.

Statistically no, you cannot die from that low level instantly. Even an hour of exposure will still take a few days to kill you. To "instantly" kill someone, you would need three or more hours of exposure (30 Sv), and even that will take several hours.

Considering anyone in their right mind would leave as soon as the level beeped 10Sv/h (hell, anyone would leave after 10mSv unless an emergency, where you could theoretically work in 1Sv/h), and it shouldn't take more than ten minutes to get out and seal everything, I think 10min is probably all you need. Even 20 min isn't normally fatal.

TamaramaJun. 28, 2012 - 05:25PM JST
"how, if they have a large enough earthquake nearby, it will all come tumbling down"
If they have a large enough quake to take down a reactor building, you have bigger things to worry about. Or rather, you probably won't have to worry about it because you died when all the non-reactor buildings came down first.

After rewatching the story tonight they are saying that not only would it take an earthquake but even a strong typhoon or tornado could be enough to damage the pool. They interviewed a reporter who worked on the site as a worker all the while wearing a hidden camera and he also said the same as what the Japanese Nuclear engineer is claiming. That the pool is unstable the wall bowing and the supports damaged. And TEPCO's response, in classic TEPCO fashion oh there is no problem we will get to it next year..... As the former Japanese ambassador to Switzerland said this is typical Japanese sickness "first we hide, then we postpone, then we deny". That pretty much sums up the situation to a T.

Why can't they just pump cement into every nook and cranny, entomb the entire thing and be done with it?"

@gogogo it is just too hot to just cover in concrete. It would melt through the concrete over time and leak again. That's why cooling is needed, constantly, for years to come.

Spent fuel can be safely stored once cooled and blended with concrete into blocks. This process costs around $US1000000 per rod. There are 1500 rods in reactor 4 pool, and 5000 more in the central pool next door.

Total cost for proper waste disposal is over 6.5 billion US$. Admitting to that expense would make nuclear power no longer feasible or competitive (which it never was anyway). Ignorance is preferable.

Honestly speaking, since the meltdowns and subsequent release of data about how bad the situation really is in regards to radiation, this is the only time in my 13 years here that I've really contemplated getting out of the country and going back to my home country.

Anyone else out there considering the same? I do consider Japan home but this is getting outright ridiculous.

Honestly speaking, since the meltdowns and subsequent release of data about how bad the situation really is in regards to radiation, this is the only time in my 13 years here that I've really contemplated getting out of the country and going back to my home country.

Really? Information about the high radiation level in one very localized spot in the isolated basement of a nuclear power station at tens of kilometers from where you are is convincing you to leave Japan?

The reactor had a melt down, the very hot fuel melted down to the basement, and that is what is being measured here. You'd probably get higher readings if you put measuring tools in the heart of functioning nuclear reactors.

Here is the 7.30 report link again for those who may have missed it.
Urging the locals to move back to the evacuated areas is, under these circumstances nothing but criminal!!
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3532725.htm

I understand Onniyamas posts to be anrgy sarcastic/ironic. I do not believe he is a nuclear proponent at all, quite the opposite. If you click his name, you can follow his posts back trough time and there is one here which I think perhaps explains why he is so upset with basroil (by the way did you perhaps just mix the two names up?).:

OnniyamaMAY. 15, 2012 - 11:49AM JST
zichi. If we had listened to so-called apocolyptic people like Arnie in the first place, maybe my family and I would not have been exposed to radiation last March for as long as we were. Instead we were lied to and misinformed. Who would you rather believe?

@kchoze I should have been more specific in my post but what I mean is that with all the discovered hotspots outside of Fukushima, probable food and water contamination, lack of info in regards to where various meat and produce come from, etc., etc., etc. really makes me feel uncertain as of the last few months.

I'm sure some damage has been done if I'm concerned about my well being, if there is any damage to be done but just the overall situation that Japan as a whole faces with very little prospect of change/recovery makes me contemplate the aforementioned.

It blows my mind how everyone and I mean Japanese or at least those outside Fukushima have just forgotten what has happened there and is happening there. Radiation: out of sight, out of mind I guess.

Anyway, just thought I would like to hear what other expats have thought who are continuing to live here...

This is a beautiful bit of spin: "Demolition will need the use of new technologies. " What does that really mean? I believe it means that they do not know how to do it and they hope they can find a way to do it in the future.

There is no cleaning up this mess at this point. They lost that option on 3/11/2011. The only thing that can be done now is concrete and lead containment. They need to bury the thing a la Chernobyl. They no longer control anything happening there.

The TEPCO / KEPCO people, who most likely knew the news above before we did, have just voted to continue with nuclear power. Denial? Yes, but of a special sort. This is denial syndrome of desperate greed. There is a whole culture that has grown around nuclear power. The capitalists, the specialists, the so-called experts from academia, politicians--right down to poor grunts who work in the bowels of the nuclear plants. Part of that denial is represented by the lies these people have been feeding the public and the other part is the hysteria of people with everything to lose if nuclear power is killed off.

After you read the above article do not think that you have heard the worst about the Fukushima disaster.

You all know what will happen soon. The people in power will finally admit that Fukushima reactor cannot be cleaned up. In the end, it's going to be a big pile of concrete covering the whole plant until a hundred years from now some method of clean up can be accomplished via "new techno." In the mean time, cross your fingers that the Big One will not split that place into million pieces.

This doesn't mean that only Fukushima is in danger but this is also a report that Tokyo and area is also being showerd with the possibility of deadly skyshine radiation. Not good. You will never know you have been exposed until its too late.

This is a beautiful bit of spin: "Demolition will need the use of new technologies. " What does that really mean?

Yay. Another "expert" identifying a statement of fact as "spin". It means exactly what it says. They are going to need to develop new technologies in order to properly demolish the reactors.

There is no cleaning up this mess at this point. They lost that option on 3/11/2011. The only thing that can be done now is concrete and lead containment. They need to bury the thing a la Chernobyl. They no longer control anything happening there.

And ANOTHER person offering their "expert" assessment of a highly technical engineering problem. It makes me wonder where were you people when all your "expertise" was REALLY needed and why you have to offer it here rather than where it would have done the most good?

My question is this a reading inside of the containment unit? Is the containment unit sealed? Did a fast conversion and it come out to 1000 rems an hour. Yup at 10 minutes all are sick, at 30 minutes 50 percent or more fatal and at 1 hour it is well beyond 100 percent fatal.
Yes time to start building another vault around the containment unit.

JoshuYakiJun. 29, 2012 - 01:02AM JST This doesn't mean that only Fukushima is in danger but this is also a report that Tokyo and area is also being showerd (sic) with the possibility of deadly skyshine radiation.

Not likely at this time of year. The predominate weather flow from now until October is SW to NE. In fact, most fallout from "leaks" at Fukushima Daiichi will be out over the Pacific.

FadamorJun. 29, 2012 - 02:34AM JST And ANOTHER person offering their "expert" assessment of a highly technical engineering problem. It makes me wonder where were you people when all your "expertise" was REALLY needed and why you have to offer it here rather than where it would have done the most good?

Fadamor, I guess you don't understand that most of the Daiichi facility is now so "hot" that you can't even do the make-work "clean-up" that is supposedly happening. It's not a "engineering" problem at this point. We aren't trying to bridge a river or erect a cantilevered building. There is no science or engineering for cleaning up a reactor meltdown, which is what happened. It simply must be contained for hundreds of years or until, as someone mentioned up thread, we miraculously discover a way to neutralize the radiation. The longer the mess around with it, the greater potential for widespread contamination.

Wanda-kun Jun. 29, 2012 - 04:42AM JST I guess you don't understand that most of the Daiichi facility is now so "hot" that you can't even do the make-work "clean-up" that is supposedly happening. It's not a "engineering" problem at this point. We aren't trying to bridge a river or erect a cantilevered building. There is no science or engineering for cleaning up a reactor meltdown, which is what happenedIt simply must be contained for hundreds of years or until, as someone mentioned up thread, we miraculously discover a way to neutralize the radiation. The longer the mess around with it, the greater potential for widespread contamination.

If the people, who are not empowered to make decisions about a solution for Fukushima, cannot even reach agreement that something must be done. The only solution known to mankind is to put the reactor cores under water immediately by a cooperative action by international humanitarian, military, engineering and governmental communities. Drop the reactor cores and accompanying land masse into the nearby ocean without further delay.

sfjp330Jun. 29, 2012 - 05:30AM JST If the people, who are not empowered to make decisions about a solution for Fukushima, cannot even reach agreement that something must be done. The only solution known to mankind is to put the reactor cores under water immediately by a cooperative action by international humanitarian, military, engineering and governmental communities. Drop the reactor cores and accompanying land masse into the nearby ocean without further delay.

You're joking right? If not, how do you propose that they move the entirety of a contaminated site dozens of acres in size weighing thousands (millions?) of tonnes without releasing lethal doses of radiation? And unless you are referring to the Japan Trench, how does otherwise dropping all this "into the nearby ocean" really help?

Wada-Kun....Joking aside, Even if the unit 4 structure has been tentatively stabilized, it doesn't change the fact that it sits in a structurally damaged building, and is exposed to the atmosphere, in a high probability earthquake zone. This absolutely makes the safe containment and protection of this spent fuel a security issue. Yet Tepco's current plans are to hold the majority of this spent fuel onsite for years in the same elevated, uncontained storage pools, only transferring some of the fuel into more secure, hardened dry casks when the common pool reaches capacity.

For the moment, and for the foreseeable future, unless the international community substantively comes to Japan's aid, Tepco couldn't transfer the irradiated fuel from the damaged reactor units into dry cask storage even if it wanted to because the equipment to do so, such as the crane support infrastructure, was destroyed during the initial disaster. The U.S. and other countries should begin to get involved and try to help the Japanese government to expedite the removal of that spent fuel and to put it into dry, hardened storage as soon as possible.

This doesn't mean that only Fukushima is in danger but this is also a report that Tokyo and area is also being showerd with the possibility of deadly skyshine radiation. Not good. You will never know you have been exposed until its too late.

When that happens most of Japan will be uninhabitable.

As I suggested last year, if you are not Japanese and have young children here, you owe it to your kids to get them out of Japan.

this is the only time in my 13 years here that I've really contemplated getting out of the country and going back to my home country.Anyone else out there considering the same?

just thought I would like to hear what other expats have thought who are continuing to live here..

Interesting comments. I would also like to know what other expats have thought who are continuing to live here…

There was a fallout after the disaster and parts of Fukushima were contaminated. Radioactive particles reached Tokyo and some other parts of Kanto. This is a fact. Akita, Aomori, Iwate, large parts of Miyagi have not been contaminated.

Saying that all of Tohoku is off-limits is irresponsible. As is stating that the plant is still “sending” radiation to Tokyo without giving/having any evidence for it.

You're joking right? If not, how do you propose that they move the entirety of a contaminated site dozens of acres in size weighing thousands (millions?) of tonnes without releasing lethal doses of radiation?

I suggest you stop talking nonsense. The entire release of Cs-137 (which is now 90%+ of the radiation) amounted to just 4.2kg (from report of an air release of 13600TBq @ 3.215TBq/g, including the 18000TBq released into water would be about 9kg), and would fit inside a 2 liter coke bottle if you were to chlorinate it and put it into solution. Unless you somehow move more than a gram per cubic meter of dirt (4.2kg/ millions of tons of dirt is far less), you have nothing to worry about except having to do it all over again. The standard procedure is to compact the dirt, keep moisture at granulation levels (so dust doesn't form), and then dig it and the dirt below it up.

Even if the process takes a hundred times longer than normal pit mining, we can try to estimate how long it would take. If they manage to get 1/100th of a large pit mine (if they are efficient at their jobs, perhaps they can get that much), we can expect 10000 tons of soil removed a day. At that rate, a year would be enough for "millions of tons". If we take zichi's famous 600sq km quote (which would be an average of 7 nanograms/m^2), at 5m^2 per ton of topsoil, we would get 120 million tons of topsoil that need to be removed. With that rate we would get 32 years, which is close to the official estimate of cleanup time. Hardly an impossible feat from an engineering standpoint, and not that expensive either. That is, of course, assuming distributions that are impossible given the current radiation readings. 7nanogram/m^2 means 22.5MBq/m^2, or about 2 million times more than some independent research of soil samples in areas within the fallout area (but not within the 20km restricted zone) and 20 times more than MEXT's findings of places considered to be highly contaminated (areas with little rainfall where Cs-137 is bio-accumulated, soil samples do not necessarily show the as high of readings)

It's the same misleading headline used when TEPCO was able to measure inside the containment vessel (73 sieverts/hr) while comparing to the previous recorded high radiation level of exhaust duct shared by Reactor 1 & 2 (10 sieverts/hr)

basroilJun. 29, 2012 - 02:38PM JST I suggest you stop talking nonsense. (Followed by blah, blah, blah about moving dirt.) Your math about earth moving, right or wrong, is unrelated to the issue of a reactor that experienced a partial meltdown and has a crack in it's interior containment vessel and the adjacent spent fuel pool with a bulge in one wall and, most likely, damaged fuel rod canisters.

The site simply needs to be shut down and everything left in place, an additional, wider, taller and thicker seawall built and then everything capped in concrete and lead. There is no cleaning up or decontaminating the site. If that was all that needed to be done, they'd be well under way in the process. They've done virtually nothing to date because reactor 4 and its spent fuel pond are too hot to get near for any meaningful "dis-assembly."

Again, we do not have the technology at this point to clean that site.

Blair Herron: Yes, the idea of leaving Japan has crossed my mind, and (only because I have a young boy!), truth is that, "nowhere" Is 100% safe, and I have faith in Japan, and the people who live here!

Thank you for the reply, Stuart. I have another question at another article, “Patches of higher-than-normal radioactivity have been detected in Mizumoto parks. You said,

Stuart hayward: Anyone with young children should stay clear of these levels of radioactive cesium

Please help me understand how these levels of radioactive cesium would affect kids? What about adults? As Clemens is asking above, I also want to know what 1.22 microSv/h means. At those places so called radiation hotspot in Tokatsu area (Kashiwa, Nagareyama, Abiko…) in Chiba prefecture, the radiation level is 0.4~0.5microSv/h, which is the same level as Colorado state USA. So I can understand that the government says there’s nothing to worry about. Clemens says the people (municipal government?) said there’s nothing to worry about with 1.22 microSv/h. I don’t want to start screaming, “WOW!!! 1.22microSv/h!!! We’d better stay away from there!!!” without knowing what 1.22microSv/h means. I carefully read the website (こどもと区民を放射能から守る葛飾連絡会 that found the hotspot). They say, “it’s dangerous there, stay out of the place.” without posting any scientific figures. I have e-mailed Katsuhika-ku asking for explanation with scientific figures why they say there’s nothing to worry about. Hope I will get reply soon.

Radiation level depends on where you live. My municipal government e-mails us once or twice a week giving radiation information at certain places (such as parks, schools…etc) above 5cm and 1m from the ground. Most of the municipal governments in Tokyo post the radiation level at certain places on a certain day on their website.

If you want to know the radiation level on the whole country, you can check the level from monitoring posts at MEXT website. You can also compare the level before 3.11,2011 and yesterday 6.29,2012.

Ok, I will. But the problem is whether I could translate things accurate in English because I asked for scientific figures which I don't have enough knowledge to translate accurately. I will post rough translation. Hope someone will help me making corrections, maybe Nigelboy could...

Blair Herron: thank you for your follow up responce and information!
I apologize for not being clear, my question, should have said " what are the radiation levels at Fukushima power plant,
In the basement of reactor #1",today June 30, 2012 ???
As for your question about the radiation at the park or hot spots?, I will respond back at the park article, I need to play
With my son for a little while, but I will respond.

It's the same misleading headline used when TEPCO was able to measure inside the containment vessel (73 sieverts/hr) while comparing to the previous recorded high radiation level of exhaust duct shared by Reactor 1 & 2 (10 sieverts/hr)

Only 73Sv/hr inside the reactor vessel? That's a quarter of the amount unshielded fuel rods are expected to have after ten years (when iodine, noble gasses, and Cs134 is practically gone). Maybe the reading wasn't inside the steel containment vessel (just concrete one) and the fuel didn't actually melt through the reactor vessel as some people insisted. If those are the actual readings, cleanup won't be as difficult as they originally expected. Maybe that's why they are saying cleanup rather than containment (as in the case of Chernobyl)

If you want to know the radiation level on the whole country, you can check the level from monitoring posts at MEXT website. You can also compare the level before 3.11,2011 and yesterday 6.29,2012.

MEXT also provides those charts in English. Well, mostly English, but good enough that anyone can see issue should there ever be any. Last time I checked (about a week ago), the levels were much lower than I expected, most are just half of the worldwide average.

Blair Herron: sorry I tried to answere your questions the best I could with, radioactive cesium found at the park, and the information wont submit, thanks J.T.
The short version is that radioactive cesium is known to compromise the emmune system and young children haven't
Fully (developed theirs, yet) , (adults have) question the( readings and numbers), you should. The fist person to report
On radiation levels found at Mizumoto park in June 2011 turned up dead one month later! He was a city councilor.

TEPCO used their own workers for the task, instead of the usual nuclear gypsies.It must have used a team of workers because each worker would have used up their yearly exposure limit if they had spent any time in that atmosphere. TEPCO didn't state the level of radiation on the spot where the worker were, but we can assume it was high.

The radiation dose measured in the Torus Room was 19.5 - 10,300mSv/h. However, the dosimeter seems to have failed as it indicated order values of 108 - 109mSv/h during the measurement and the values did not change until the dosimeter was brought back up.

The water came from the water pumped into the reactor to cool the melted fuel. This could have only happened for two reasons and leaking from one of two places. The containment vessel which houses the reactor pressure vessel which would normally hold the nuclear fuel was damaged by the earthquake of 3/11 which cracked the concrete and steel vessel, or the earthquake cracked the huge steel suppression chamber.

The other scenario is the nuclear fuel in the reactor pressure vessel went into meltdown on the night of 3/11 because of the lack of cooling water. The melted fuel dropped to the bottom of the reactor pressure vessel, burning it's way through the base and dropping to the base of the containment vessel. From there, some of the melted fuel burnt through the containment vessel and into the Torus Room which houses the huge steel compression chamber. Alternatively, some of the melted fuel got into the steel compression chamber and burnt its way through into the Torus Room.

So, when TEPCO pumps water into the containment vessel, some of it leaks via a cracked containment vessel, or via a cracked compression chamber, and into the basement of the large Torus Room.

TEPCO recently discovered that the radiation level inside the No2 containment vessel was 70 sieverts per hour. Under normal operation of the reactor, it would not be that high. They also discovered the level of the cooling water was much lower than expected, about 60 cms.

Probably, the radiation level inside the No1 containment vessel is similar to No2 one.

TEPCO needs to solve the problem of the leaks because the water will continue to leak out of the containment vessel or the suppression chamber. But with radiation levels of 10 sieverts per hour, no carbon based creature could enter the No1 Torus Room. It's also very doubtful if a robot could survive that level of radiation without frying its electronics.

TEPCO sent a Quince robot into the 5th floor of the No2 reactor but it got its electronics fried and is still there. The radiation there was 880 millisieverts per hour.

If TEPCO was able to find a way to seal the leaks then it could pump the water out.

Just one of the many impossible problems facing TEPCO, but hopefully some young bright engineer will come up with an answer over the next 50 years, but probably not before TEPCO spends tens of trillions of yen of Japanese taxpayer money. I think it's "insane" that the owners of these atomic plants are only liable for a maximum of ¥120 billion when their plants go belly side up, even though they also received ¥billions in gov't subsidies when they built their plants.

The other major problem being, how to locate and remove the appox 100 tons of melted fuels inside each reactor, 1-3?

@Stuart Hayward, Thank you very much for spending your precious time for me and helping me when you could have been with your boy. I still don’t understand the differences between 0.5microSv/h and 1.22microSv/h. I’m a very slow learner when it comes to science. I’m neither pro nor anti-nuke. I don’t have enough knowledge to choose yet. So those people (whether anti/pro nuke) who post things with scientific figures and reliable sources are helping me a lot and I really appreciate it. Thank you.

If you multiply those reading by the number of hours in 1 year, appox 8765, then you would arrive at the total radiation you would receive if you stood on those spots 24/7 for 1year. Outside of Fukushima the maximum radiation above normal background levels would be 1millisievert per year. Inside Fukushima, the government increased the level to 20 millisieverts per year above normal background levels. 1 millisievert per year is 0.11microsieverts per hour above normal background levels. 20 millisieverts per year is 2.28 microsieverts per hour above normal background levels.

If you multiply those reading by the number of hours in 1 year, appox 8765, then you would arrive at the total radiation you would receive if you stood on those spots 24/7 for 1year.

Thank you, zichi.

So 1.22microSv/h=10.693milliSv/y that is the same level as Guarapari (Brazil) which is a well-known tourist destination, known for its curving white sand beaches, whose population is 101,116 (2005) This high level of radiation does not seem to have caused ill effects on the residents of the area (Wikipedia)

It is not that simple. Just because it occurs naturally in some places does not mean that it is not causing health problems.

Doses from radon works a little bit differently, but as the numbers are matching the levels you are discussing,I thought I will quote it anyway. This is from the Radon section of Wikipedias backround radiation article

Radiation exposure from radon is indirect. Radon has a short half-life (4 days) and decays into other solid particulate radium-series radioactive nuclides. These radioactive particles are inhaled and remain lodged in the lungs, causing continued exposure. People in affected localities can receive up to 10 mSv per year background radiation.[10] Radon is thus the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking, and accounts for 15,000 to 22,000 cancer deaths per year in the US alone.[25]

Some counter indicative information can be found at
http://hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q922.html (Health Physics Society)
Here they are basically stating that there is no relationship between background radiation and cancer rates. However they are admitting that the findings are controversial.

So I am not saying here that the hotspot dose rates at 1.22microSv/h is an immediate health concern. But lately research has shown that even quite small doses such as those received from a dental xray (50 -200 microSv range) leads to increased rates of brain cancer.

Interesting comments. I would also like to know what other expats have thought who are continuing to live here…

Not considering leaving, unless I better opportunities arise elsewhere. However, if Japan does go for a big reduction in nuclear power I would consider moving, as I don't want my son to grow up in a needlessly impoverished nation.

Interestingly I see in the news that the cooling pumps for No.4 Reactor pool stopped working yesterday. Temperatures were gradually rising. Workers were said to be battling against a time limit window of several hours to fix the pumps or install new ones in order to get the water to start to cool down again. Let's hope they've succeeded by now.

But lately research has shown that even quite small doses such as those received from a dental xray (50 -200 microSv range) leads to increased rates of brain cancer.

I think “increase” is a very tricky word.

According to Wall Street Jouranl (3/2/2012), Kathryn Higley, a professor of nuclear engineering at Oregon State University said, “From a radiological perspective, we expect the impact to be really, really minor,” said Of the first 10,000 people exposed to radioactive plumes in the wake of the Fukushima accident—those assumed to have the highest levels of radiation exposure—only 73 had exposure higher than 10 millisieverts. Even among the workers battling the crippled plant, the average exposure was only about 9 millisieverts.

The panel members generally concurred that the levels of radiation emitted after the accident will not measurably raise the risk of getting cancer. The panelists estimated that the risk of getting cancer for those exposed would increase by about 0.002%, and the risk of dying from cancer would rise by 0.001%.

The risk of getting cancer would increase by 0.002%, she said. Should I be scared of 0.002% increase or it’s basically nothing to worry about?

@Star-viking,

Thank you for reading my posts and leaving comments. I always read your posts carefully, especially the comments against my post. I sometimes do not reply to you not because I’m ignoring you but I have nothing to say since you have got a point in there :)

You must incase the entire reactor in concrete, Dig tunnels under the incased reactor, fill with concrete, then cover with concrete and lead to be forevermore intombed there. Then Build Solar or Hydrogen generators to make electricity to meet the need's of Japan. " No Nuclear plants!!!" Every time there's an Earthquake and or a Tsunami, there's another chance of Disaster from a Nuclear Accident. Then the fallout and radiation and then the people suffer even more. No More Nuclear Pollution! Let Japan Live...